


memories are a currency and we're all broke

by alderations



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Depression, Fluff, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mutual Pining, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sickfic, good ol' found family comfort and love and appreciation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 10:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17916650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: Juno blinked until he could make out the vague shape of Nureyev’s body in front of him. “Migraine. ‘S a migraine. But I can see fine, it’s not my fault Nureyev’s turned into an abominable snowman, I can make it—”“Yeah, yeah, you’re real strong and independent and all that.” Rita pulled his arm around her shoulders and started walking again, taking more care this time to give Juno room to move without running into things. “C’mon, boss, let’s get you a nice late-late breakfast and then maybe you’ll feel better."





	memories are a currency and we're all broke

“Mista Steel?”

It was awfully early to be hearing Rita’s voice outside his room, Juno thought; she didn’t usually bother him until six or so. She understood the value of beauty sleep as much as the next lady. Juno started to extricate himself from the mass of blankets piled around him, but as soon as he rolled to face the door, the dull, throbbing pain in his head trickled down to the rest of his body, and he answered Rita with a groan.

“Mista Steel, you gotta get out of bed. You need to maintain your biorhythms in space, that’s what Jet says. It’s almost two in the afternoon.”

“It’s  _ what?”  _ Juno grunted, wincing at the sound of his own voice. There had to be a dozen toads in his throat, at least.

Rita’s hands scrabbled against his door for a minute, and then cold yellow light spilled into Juno’s room as the door slid open. The light was the first thing on Juno’s mind—and then  _ pain, _ arcing back across his head from his eye, until he could feel it pulsing down his neck and settling like dust in his stiff joints. “Fuck,” he groaned, pressing the heel of his hand into his eye. It didn’t help. “Rita, could you turn the—turn the light off? Or the sun? Whatever the fuck that is?”

“We can’t. Those are just the ship’s running lights,” another voice responded. Peter Nureyev’s gentle words didn’t split Juno’s skull quite as badly as Rita did, but he wasn’t relieved to hear the man, either. “Juno, you look awful.”

With a petulant huff, Juno sat up in bed and instantly regretted it. “Thanks, Nureyev, I’m sure I never would’ve figured that one out on my own.”

“I didn’t mean to insult,” Nureyev replied, and in his mind’s eye, Juno could see him throwing his hands up in a mockery of surrender. In reality, the colorless fuzz drifting back and forth across his eye made it impossible to discern where Nureyev ended and the rest of the room began. “We were worried about you, hence the wakeup call.”

Juno mumbled an incoherent comeback and then jumped when he felt Rita’s hands on his shoulders, gathering the blankets around him. That was weird; usually he could hear Rita coming a mile away, but he must’ve been too distracted by Nureyev. “He’s probably half-dead from caffeine deprivation by now, Mista Nureyev. Let’s go get him some coffee,” Rita declared as she dragged him to his feet. Her tiny hands on his shoulders were the only things keeping him standing.

He took two steps, assisted by Rita, before he ran into Nureyev and jumped back like he’d been electrocuted. “What the fuck,” he hissed, squinting furiously in the thief’s direction.

“Juno, can you… see?”

Juno opened his mouth to snap something along the lines of  _ yes, of course I can see, what are you talking about,  _ but Rita beat him to it. “He’s got one of those—the weird headaches. Like in that one movie where people could see ghosts but then their heads got all messed up, and it turned out the government was planting satellite dishes in their brains? Except Mista Steel’s got, like, the normal version of that. It happens sometimes. What are they called again, boss? Somethin’ about rice?”

“Rice?” Juno muttered, blinking until he could make out the vague shape of Nureyev’s body in front of him. The man was too close for Juno to process right now. “Migraine. ‘S a migraine. But I can see fine, it’s not  _ my  _ fault Nureyev’s turned into an abominable snowman, I can make it—”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re real strong and independent and all that.” Rita pulled his arm around her shoulders and started walking again, taking more care this time to give Juno room to move without running into things. “C’mon, boss, let’s get you a nice late-late breakfast and then maybe you’ll feel better. It ain’t good for you to sleep whenever you wanna when we’re out here in  _ space.”  _ She stage-whispered the last word as if they were being watched, like it was some big secret that they were on a damn spaceship in the first place. Juno let her drag him along, though he kept an ear out for Nureyev’s soft footsteps moving down the hallway behind them. That was odd; he usually couldn’t hear Nureyev moving unless he was either making some grand entrance or very drunk. Or both. He didn’t comment on Juno’s sad state of being, either, nor did he participate in Rita’s one-sided conversation as it carried the three of them all the way to the ship’s tiny kitchen.

A chair scraped across the floor loud enough to make Juno wince, and then Rita pushed him into it and adjusted the blankets around his shoulders again. “There, nice and comfy. Do you want regular coffee or that fancy caramel stuff Frannie got me?”

“That—the fancy stuff is _ yours, _ Rita.”

“Yeah, but you can have some if you need it, boss! I know it tastes kinda like an old candle, but y’know, sometimes feelin’ a little fancy can help you out, so I figured…”

Juno sighed. “Regular is good. I just want it in my body.”

Now that they were no longer on the move, Juno had no idea where Nureyev was. He opened his eye for just long enough to look around—not that he could really see anything—before the stark kitchen light got to him and he threw the blankets over his head with a stifled groan. Some part of him was vaguely aware that his legs were hurting, and  _ bad, _ but his head took precedence over his stupid bones and their stupid complaints. After all, he should’ve gotten past the pressure sickness by now, and the worst of his injuries from the THEIA Soul debacle were long since healed. And yet, every goddamn muscle in his body ached like they were full of rocks, and it all culminated in the sickly fuzz crammed into his pathetic skull.

Then Nureyev’s voice materialized much closer than he expected, and Juno jumped. “May I touch you, Juno?”

The question caught Juno off guard. They had hardly touched since Juno had boarded the spaceship, mostly just accidental brushes as they passed each other in the halls or reached for the same coffeepot. That wasn’t to say that every atom in Juno’s body didn’t yearn for Nureyev, every single day, all the time, but he’d never admit that out loud. Still. He wasn’t above taking what was offered to him. “Sure,” he mumbled.

A single footstep closed the gap between them, and then Nureyev’s slender fingers found their way under the blankets and onto Juno’s skin, pressing deep into his aching shoulders with unexpected precision. His hands were cool, smooth, and comforting in the way that a glass of scotch was, and they made the pit of Juno’s stomach burn just the same. He clenched his fists until his nails cut into his palms, desperate for some distraction, but nothing could tear his mind away from Nureyev’s thumbs digging the tension out of his neck and moving slowly toward his scalp.

From an objective standpoint, Nureyev gave one hell of a massage. Subjectively, Juno was ready to die here and now.

Somewhere in the distance, Juno heard Rita pour his coffee and then turn, only to let out a squeal that was probably the Rita version of subtle—so, to a normal person, earsplitting. He struggled not to roll his eye. “Do you need something, Rita?”

“Oh, nothin’, boss, don’t mind me.” She hurried across the room and set his coffee down on the table, then moved one of his arms to show him where the mug was. “How ‘bout I make us some waffles? I could use a snack, and you need to eat somethin’. I’ll take care of that and you two can just, well, y’know.” Juno could practically hear her winking. It certainly didn’t help the tension in his shoulders, but Nureyev’s hands gave no indication that he was affected.

Rita’s footsteps scampered back over to the cabinets, presumably searching for waffle mix, while Nureyev leaned a few inches closer until Juno could feel his breath stirring his hair. “What could she possibly mean by that?” he teased, his voice low and even in a way that made Juno’s chest squeeze.

“No need to play dumb, Nureyev,” he grumbled.

No matter how many times he heard it, Nureyev’s knowing chuckle always made Juno feel… warm, mostly, but also ready to storm off into a corner and mope. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nureyev responded loftily.

“Hmph.”

Across the kitchen, something clattered loudly as Rita dug through the cabinets in search of the waffle iron. Juno flinched, then mentally admonished himself as Nureyev’s hands moved back down to his shoulders and started seeking out the plethora of knots in Juno’s miserable back. The racket died down after a minute, only to be replaced by Rita’s tuneless humming as she mixed ingredients and fired up the waffle iron. Before long, the smell of cheap waffle mix wafted across the room to Juno, while the fog in his head started to clear with the help of warm coffee in his stomach. He started to relax, as much as he could under Nureyev’s affectionate touch, and then something… changed.

“Oh my god,” he muttered, staring down at his hands through the static obscuring his vision. “Oh, holy  _ fuck.” _

“Are you alright?” Nureyev prodded, keeping his voice low so Rita wouldn’t abandon her waffle-making in favor of comforting him and, subsequently, burn down the whole spaceship.

Juno shook his head slowly. “I’m—I’m fine, I just—fuck. Shit. Wow.” His mouth was dry all of a sudden, and he took a long sip of coffee to clear his thoughts. “I just remembered… I think—well—fuck, I have no idea if I remembered this or just made it up, but it’s so  _ vivid.”  _ A sardonic laugh built in his throat until he couldn’t hold it in. “D’you ever get that, Nureyev? When you suddenly remember something from when you were a kid, like, a  _ little _ kid, and you don’t know what the hell you’re supposed to do with that knowledge, but you can’t ignore it ‘cause… I don’t know. Fuck. I just remembered these fucking waffles they used to feed us at Old Town Elementary, and how I hated them and Benten loved them and—and how many times I’d make fun of him for stuffing, like, four waffles in his mouth at once.”

The hands on his shoulders went still, and Juno worried that he’d somehow offended Nureyev until the thief spoke. “I do know how that feels.”

“It’s so… it’s so damn stupid,” Juno continued, ignoring the tears welling up in his eye. “I don’t know, maybe it’s because of Ben. Every time I remember something like that—y’know, the kind of thing that I really shouldn’t give a shit about, ‘cause who the fuck cares what I remember about school—every time I feel like I’ve been hit by a goddamn train because what else could I possibly be missing? What else is up in  _ there,”  _ he knocked his mug against his head and narrowly avoided splashing hot coffee into his hair, “without me knowing? How much of B-Benten have I forgotten?” Juno’s voice cracks on the last few words as sickly-warm tears wet his face.

Behind him, Nureyev shuffled in place uncomfortably. “And you have no way to know what was real and what was just… a dream. Or something you told yourself to make things seem better. Or something—something that was told to you.” His suave voice trembled, and Juno turned slightly in his chair to look up at him.

His vision was still fuzzy, but the coffee and the surprisingly methodical massage had helped just enough that Juno could see Nureyev’s brilliant eyes, wet with tears and shining like a hummingbird’s carapace. “Exactly,” he murmured. “Oldtown is gone. Even if I could—if I could go back to Hyperion, I’d have no way of knowing. Shit, I try to—to take the big guy’s advice, and not look back and all that, but it’s different when it’s my fucking  _ brother _ and all I have is my own awful memory and I can never know what was real and what’s j-just hiding under some other lie.” Juno’s chest shook and his eyes couldn’t stay focused on anything, but Nureyev’s hand moving from his shoulder to hold his face kept him anchored.

“I can’t exactly return to Brahma whenever I’d like, either,” mused Nureyev.

Juno cursed under his breath. “I’m sorry, Nureyev, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“I know.” The hand on his face shifted until Nureyev’s thumb could brush over Juno’s lip, quieting him. “I understand, that’s all.”

They stared at each other for long enough that it would’ve been uncomfortable, were it anyone else, and not the man that made Juno feel so,  _ so  _ much. Juno wanted to hold him, and he wanted to be held, and he wanted to run back to Oldtown and curl up in the sewer and cling to every detail that could possibly be true until he could build a picture of his living, breathing brother again, and he wanted to fuck off into the stars and never see Hyperion City again. The last two were probably not going to work out for him, but holding Nureyev was a distinct possibility in the near future, and Juno could hang on to that for now.

Rita slammed a plate full of steaming waffles onto the table in front of him, and Juno whipped around with every intention of pretending he hadn’t just been staring deep into Nureyev’s eyes with all the passion of a washed-up old stream star. “Order up, boss,” Rita piped, drizzling syrup onto one of the waffles with absurd precision. “And you, Mista Thief Man, you can have one too, if you promise to talk about your feelings instead of just starin’ at Mista Steel all googly-eyed until you both make yourselves sad again.”

“I—I’m—I’m sorry, Rita, dear, but…” Nureyev trailed off, dropping his hand from where it was still resting on Juno’s neck in a way that was probably meant to be subtle. Juno had never seen him so flustered, and it was as satisfying as he’d always hoped. “I’m. Well. Thank you for the waffles.”

“Ya wecomfe,” Rita responded through a mouthful of syrupy mush.

Nureyev sat down at the table next to Juno, carefully avoiding eye contact, but Juno’s shoulders still tingled where Nureyev had touched him minutes before. They would talk, with or without Rita’s interference; for once, Juno had faith in that particular future. In fact, they’d already talked about the past, just long enough to establish that Juno had regretted leaving Nureyev in that hotel every single day since they’d last been together, and that Nureyev was—he was still in love with Juno. And Juno’s throat had closed over when he tried to respond, but he knew, with sudden clarity, that he wasn’t far away from actually speaking the words that kept getting stuck in his lungs until his chest ached.

Those bright eyes met his as they both reached for the last waffle, and Rita yanked it away from them to cut it evenly into thirds, and… yeah, for once in his life, Juno really did feel loved.

**Author's Note:**

> first of all, there's no way in hell Rita won't figure out Peter's name 5 minutes into Space Adventures if she doesn't already know it. Cuz c'mon, she's probably seen The Letter or heard Juno muttering Nureyev this Nureyev that when he falls asleep at his desk or something. (And I also have [some ideas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627531) about Nureyev's name in the future...)
> 
> anyway. the Big PTSD Mood(TM) of the Week is regaining random ass memories out of the blue and being completely immobilized by the weird combination of "oh my god im a real person with a real past what the fuck" and "when will this information ever be of use to me, why do i feel like the sky has opened up and the world is ending, what the hell." for me it's been random details about my elementary school, so, uh, sorry Juno. I just thought about Newtown a little too hard and realized that like... 99% of the places that connect Juno to his brother are probably gone now. And we're all proud of him for moving on and bettering himself, but good lord does that have to fucking hurt.
> 
> sorry if this is disjointed and senseless, I had my First Ever Professional Conference (!!) this week so I'm an exhausted overworked mess at the moment and I just wanted to dump my feelings onto one (1) detective so I can go back to writing self-indulgent smut. comments are always welcome and always make my Entire week and I love you all so much for reading and just taking a few minutes of your time to absorb my rambling :')
> 
> find me @alderations wherever alderations are sold ;3 (jk tumblr and twitter and generally not for sale)


End file.
